When did chinese kung fu begin?

The origins of Kung Fu (also written as Gung Fu , and today bearing the meaning of a Chinese martial art) are hidden behind many myths of outrageous deeds and impossible folklore. Much of its recorded history has been lost, with only a few fragments surviving.





Its beginnings can be traced back more than three thousand years in China, when personal combat first developed into a science. But it is only during the Han Dynasty (around 200 CE) that records of empty-hand and empty-hand against weapon combat techniques and strategies are printed in a chapter of Han Shu I Chih. The earliest records of martial arts schools date back to the era of the Six Dynasties (264-581 CE). The next major chapter in the history of Chinese martial arts is traced back to contributions from Ch'an Buddhism, and the foundation of the infamous Shaolin Temple.|||it all started out a dark gloomy day when the evil cat emeperor attacked and took over many empires and then humans were forced to learn kung fu to work for them.Then humans became independant and that is how it all came up.|||Well, Gong Fu, doesn't exactly mean Martial Arts, at least not traditionally, but more likely Skill Aquired Through Hard Work :)





In other words, having good Gong Fu means having good basic skills, or Gongs, that put together can make up an art with many elements.





Now the types of training, that the word Gong Fu in China normally is identified with, are different forms of martial arts. In China, they probably originated in travelling guardsmen and other people in need of self defense, who also were involved in some type of religious/spiritual dicipline.





In India, in the time of 2000-3000 B.C., martial arts training connected with different types of spiritual dicipline, were in existance. Probably some of these schools or traditions somehow migrated from down south (like Buddhism later on), perhaps spreading through caravan guards and traveling yogis. In China, within Taoism, within Buddhism, and within other traditions (Moists as well), the Gong Fu concept got moulded and traslated into a Chinese tradition, until it became what we today popularly in the West call Kung Fu, or Chinese Martial Arts. Mind you, it is not a single immutable concept, but subject to continual and multiple evolution :) - still!